Brian O’Driscoll Reveals He Got Brain Tests Following Retirement

After retiring, Ireland’s most capped player Brian O’Driscoll feared he was “slowing down a small bit”. He feared it enough to get a battery of neurological tests carried out.

“After I finished I felt I was slowing down a small bit. I just felt as though my coordination wasn’t quite the same, so I went and got a load of neurological tests and scans just to be sure,” O’Driscoll told David Walsh. “Excuse the pun but it was all in my head.

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“When you are doing something for 15 years and then you stop for six months of course your coordination is going to be down a fraction.”

He also admits to having concerns over the future health of Irish fly half Johnny Sexton;

“It would be preferable if Johnny didn’t have them [concussions] for a period. It gets highlighted because he is the poster boy of Irish rugby,” said O’Driscoll in an interview with the Sunday Times.

“Johnny would give out to me for saying this but I wish he would sort out his tackle technique. I think that is an issue and that it the reason why that he is finding himself in those head collisions because he is very chest-up.”